Security, Secrecy and a Bush Brother

A company that
provided security at the World Trade Center, Washington
D.C.'s Dulles International Airport and United Airlines
between 1995 and 2001 was backed by a private
Kuwaiti-American investment firm whose records were not open
to full public disclosure, with ties to the Bush family.

Marvin P. Bush, a younger brother of George W. Bush, was a
principal in the company from 1993 to 2000, when most of the
work on the big projects was done. But White House responses
to 9/11 have not publicly disclosed the company's part in
providing security to any of the named facilities.

Public records indicate that the firm, formerly named
Securacom, had Bush on its board of directors. He was also
listed as a significant shareholder. The firm, which is now
named Stratesec, Inc., is located in Sterling, Va., a D.C.
suburb, and emphasizes federal clients. Bush is no longer on
the board.

Bush has not responded to repeated
telephoned and emailed requests for comment.

The
American Stock Exchange delisted Stratesec's stock in
October 2002. (Securacom also had a contract to provide
security at Los Alamos National Laboratories, notorious for
its security breach.)

According to its present CEO,
Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to
handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the
buildings fell down." Yet instead of being investigated, the
company and companies involved with it have benefited from
legislation pushed by the Bush White House and
rubber-stamped by Congressional Republicans. Stratesec, its
backer KuwAm, and their corporate officers stand to benefit
from limitations on liability and national-security
protections from investigation provided in bills since
9/11.

HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., a reinsurance
corporation on whose board Marvin Bush sat as director until
November 2002, similarly benefits from terrorism insurance
protections. (Bush's first year on the board at HCC
coincided with his last year on the board at Stratesec.)
HCC, formerly Houston Casualty Company, carried some of the
insurance for the World Trade Center. It posted a loss for
the quarter after the attacks of Sept. 11 and dropped
participation in worker's compensation as a result. Bush
remains an adviser to the chairman and the Board of
Directors, as well as a member of the company's investment
committee.

The former CEO of Stratesec is Wirt D.
Walker III, who is still chairman of the board. Although he
has also been the managing director of KuwAm for several
years, Walker states definitively in phone interviews that
there was no exchange of talent between Stratesec and KuwAm
during the WTC and other projects.

As Walker put it,
"I'm an investment banker." He continued, "We just owned
some stock." The investment company "was not involved in any
way in the work or day-to-day operations" of the security
company. He explained clearly and pleasantly that there was
no sharing of information or of personnel between the two
companies.

In December 2000 -- when the presidential
election was determined -- Stratesec added a Government
Division, providing "the same full range of security systems
services as the Commercial Division," in the company's
words. Stratesec now has "an open-ended contract with the
General Services Administration (GSA) and a Blanket Purchase
Agreement (BPA) with the agency that allows the government
to purchase materials and services from the Company without
having to go through a full competition."

The company
lists as government clients "the US Army, US Navy, US Air
force, and the Department of Justice," in projects that
"often require state-of-the-art security solutions for
classified or high-risk government sites." In 2000, the US
Army accounted for 29% of the company's earned revenues, or
about $6.9 million.

The White House opposed an
independent commission to investigate 9/11 until after the
terrorism insurance protections and protections for security
companies had safely passed Congress. It has also quietly
intervened in lawsuits against United Airlines in New York,
brought by relatives of the victims.

Marvin Bush
joined Securacom's Board of Directors in 1993, as part of
new management hired when the company separated from
engineering firm Burns and Roe. The new team was capitalized
by KuwAm, the D.C.-based Kuwaiti-American investment
company. Bush also served on the Board of Directors at
KuwAm, along with Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah, Chairman of
KuwAm and also a Director on Securacom's (Stratesec's)
board.

The World Trade Center and the Metropolitan
Washington Airport Authority -- which operates Dulles --
were two of Securacom's three biggest clients in 1996 and
1997. (The third was MCI, now WorldCom.)

Stratesec
(Securacom) differs from other security companies which
separate the function of consultant from that of service
provider. The company defines itself as a "single-source"
provider of "end-to-end" security services, including
everything from diagnosis of existing systems to hiring
subcontractors to installing video and electronic equipment.
It also provides armored vehicles and security guards.

When, following the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center,
the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began its
multi-million-dollar, multiyear revamping of security in and
around the Twin Towers and Buildings 4 and 5, Securacom was
among numerous contractors hired in the upgrade.

The
companies doing security jobs received due mention in print,
in security industry publications and elsewhere. The board
membership of a son of former President Bush went unnoticed,
at least in print.

According to SEC filings,
Securacom/Stratesec acquired the $8.3 million World Trade
Center contract in October 1996. The project generated 28%
of over-all revenues for the company in 1996, part of
increased over-all revenues. SEC filings indicate that
revenues from the World Trade Center project commenced in
1996 at $1.6 million, peaked in 1997 at $6.6 million ($4.1
million in the first half), and diminished in 1998 to less
than $1 million.

A key concept in security is "access
control." In hindsight, as the security industry's reportage
on the WTC precautions makes clear, further attacks would
have to come from the air. Unfortunately, such detailed
reports did not convey that message at home. Nobody thought
outside the box enough to deduce that a jumbo jet could
overcome even the extraordinary controls at the World Trade
Center. With 20-20 hindsight, it is obvious that the
intricate procedures in the building's lobbies and on its
perimeters were like trying to stop a 767 with ID badges.

Barry McDaniel, CEO of the company since January 2002,
declines on security grounds to give specific details about
work the company did at the World Trade Center. According to
McDaniel, the contract was ongoing (a "completion
contract"), and "not quite completed when the Center went
down." The company designed a system, but - as he points out
-- obviously that "didn't have anything to do with planes
flying into buildings."

The key words "access control"
are less feeble and irrelevant, however, in regard to
airports and airlines. Had the hijackers failed on the
ground, they would have lost their airborne weapon.

Two of the hijacked planes took off from Dulles Airport, and
the other two were United Airlines planes.

McDaniel
makes clear that Securacom's contract for UAL was a
single-site contract, in Indianapolis (at least five years
ago), and not local. The work done, finished several years
before he joined the board, was not in or near D.C.

Dulles Airport, obviously, is another matter. Dulles is
regarded as "absolutely a sensitive airport," according to
security consultant Wayne Black, head of a Florida-based
security firm, given its location, size, and the number of
international carriers it serves.

Black has not heard
of Stratesec, but responds that for one company to handle
security for both airports and airlines is somewhat unusual.
It is also delicate for a security firm serving
international facilities to be so interlinked with a
foreign-owned company: "Somebody knew somebody," he
suggested, or the contract would have been more closely
scrutinized.

As Black points out, "when you [a
company] have a security contract, you know the inner
workings of everything." And if another company is linked
with the security company, then "What's on your computer is
on their computer."

In this context, retired FAA
special agent Brian F. Sullivan is angry, and eloquent. "You
can have all the security systems in the world, but the
people behind the systems make the difference." The Bush
administration, says Sullivan, "spit in the faces" of the
victims' families, in pushing for last-minute protections
for foreign-owned security companies (in the Homeland
Security bill). Sullivan points out that "not one single
person" in an upper-level position has lost a job as a
result of 9/11, "not in the FBI, CIA, FAA, DOT." As he sums
up, "No accountability, no progress."

Stratesec got
its first preventive maintenance contract with Dulles
Airport in 1995, generating $0.3 million that year. The
Dulles project generated revenue of $1.2 million in 1996,
$2.5 million in 1997, and $2.3 million in 1998, accounting
for 22% of the company's revenues in 1996 and in 1998

Like other specialists, Professor Dale B. Oderman, in the
Aviation Technology Department at Purdue, concurs that
Dulles "was considered a very high profile target" as the
primary international airport near the nation's capital. It
serves as port of entry to about 15 international airlines
as well as serving eight of the 11 major US passenger
carriers. In comparison, Reagan Airport hosts only Air
Canada from outside the US, and Baltimore-Washington Airport
hosts about a half dozen."

Stratesec did not handle
screening of passengers at Dulles. According to a
contracting official for the Metropolitan Washington Airport
Authority, its three-year contract was for maintenance of
security systems: It maintained the airfield access system,
the CCTV (closed circuit television) system, and the
electronic badging system.

In 1997, the World Trade
Center and Dulles accounted for 55% and 20% of the company's
earned revenues, respectively. The WTC and Dulles projects
figured largely in both Securacom's growing revenues from
1995 to 1997 and its decreases from 1997 to 1998.

Stratesec continued to refer to "New York City's World Trade
Center" as a former client through April 2001. It listed
Dulles Airport and United Airlines as former clients through
April 2002.

As with the World Trade Center -- which
also had electronic badging, security gates, and CCTV -- the
ultimate problem with Dulles' security controls was not the
controls themselves, but that they could be sidestepped. All
the hijackers had to do was buy a ticket. As former FAA
special agent Sullivan comments, "If they [attackers] knew
about the security system, they knew how to bypass it."

One obvious question for investigators is how much potential
hijackers could have known about the security system.

From 1993 to 1999, KuwAm -- the Kuwait-American Corporation
-- held a large and often controlling interest in Securacom.
In 1996, KuwAm Corporation owned 90% of the company, either
directly or through partnerships like one called Special
Situations Investment Holdings and another called "Fifth
Floor Company for General Trading and Contracting." KuwAm
owned 31% of Securacom in 1998 and 47% of Stratesec in 1999.
It currently holds only about 205,000 shares of Stratesec;
Walker, KuwAm's managing director, holds 650,000.

Marvin Bush was reelected annually to Securacom's board of
directors from 1993 through 1999. His final reelection was
on May 25, 1999, for July 1999 to June 2000. Throughout, he
also served on the company's Audit Committee and
Compensation Committee, and his stock holdings grew during
the period. Directors had options to purchase 25,000 shares
of stock annually. In 1996, Bush acquired 53,000 shares at
52 cents per share. Shares in the 1997 IPO sold at $8.50.
Records since 2000 no longer list Bush as a shareholder.

Stratesec and KuwAm were and still are intertwined at the
top. Walker, while a principal at Stratesec (a director
since 1987, chairman of the board since 1992, and formerly
CEO since 1999), was also on the board of directors at KuwAm
and is still managing director (both since 1982). Mishal
Yousef Saud Al Sabah, the chairman at KuwAm, also served on
Stratesec's board from 1991 to 2001. Walker and Al Sabah had
major stock holdings in each other's companies. Their sons
also held shares in both companies.

Stratesec, which
currently lists 45 employees, hired KuwAm for corporate
secretarial services in 2002, at $2,500 per month.

For
several years, Walker has also been chairman and CEO of an
aircraft company, Aviation General, about 70% owned by
KuwAm.

The Saudi Arabian embassy, the Kuwait embassy,
and KuwAm have office suites in the Watergate complex, where
both Stratesec and Aviation General held their annual
shareholders' meetings in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Bush was
reelected to his annual board position there, across the
hall from a Saudi Arabian Airlines office. (This year, the
companies' shareholders meetings switched to the fifth
floor, in space also held by Saudis and Kuwaitis.)

Incidentally, Riggs Bank -- where the Saudi Princess
Al-Faisal had her checking account -- also has a large
office in the Watergate. Given that Jonathan Bush, the
president's uncle, is a Riggs executive, it is difficult to
understand any obstacle for US authorities pursuing the
recently reported "Saudi money trail." The princess's
charitable activities were processed through Riggs, but
attention focused on the Saudis seems not to extend to the
US bank they used.

McDaniel was asked in a brief
telephone interview whether FBI or other agents have
questioned him or others at Stratesec about the company's
security work in connection with 9/11. The concise answer:
"No." Asked the same question regarding KuwAm, Walker
declines to comment further, and refers to the public
record.

According to a spokesman in an FBI regional
office, by October 2001, "the investigation [of 9/11] is
being coordinated at the national level directly from the
White House." If so, you'd think that an administration that
could seriously consider infiltrating American mosques would
ask a few questions closer to home.

But the suggestion
is inescapable that any investigation into security
arrangements preceding 9/11, at some of the nation's most
sensitive facilities, has been impeded to this day by
narrowly political concerns in the White House. "Mayberry
Machiavellis" strike again: Rather than face possible
embarrassment at disclosing Bush family interests in the
security industry, Team Bush has stonewalled any concession
to the public interest, statesmanship or even common sense.
Every public statement from the White House seems designed
to direct public attention toward Middle Easterners and away
from Americans doing business with them -- at least if their
name is Bush.

From a purely business or political
perspective, stonewalling might be understandable. But from
the perspective of the victims' families or of the public,
it looks odd. This is the White House we're talking about.
In all the public expressions of sorrow or pity for the
victims, it would have been natural, surely, for the
president to say something along the lines of "Why, my own
brother was part of that business. He and all of us are
heartbroken" etc etc. But such comment has not been
forthcoming. He might even have said, "My own relatives, if
they had any transactions that might have any connection at
all with the individuals involved, will turn over every
record" etc. But that statement has also not been
uttered.

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FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does not necessarily
endorse the views expressed in the above article. We
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information we believe it contains. We hope that the reader
finds in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping
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communities, towards a greater, common understanding of the
unanswered questions which now lie before us.

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